2791: This Simple Rep Technique Doubles Your Results

30:17But you won't catch me out there. No way, dude. I like just blessing out. Like, I know something, and then I'll do it, like, just very occasionally, and then people will trip out. You're the guy, let me guess, you're the dude that will go on the dance floor and just throw splits out there. I don't do splits, dude. But you know what I mean? That's you, though. Yeah, but I'll do some move. Like, you have a move. You have a signature move, don't you? I mean, it's kind of like performing on stage. I'll do stuff. What's your signature? You have a move for sure. What's your signature? I did know. It's like a leg shake with a kick.

30:49Yeah. You got a leg shake with a kick? I used to do some Michael Jackson stuff. I knew it, dude. I knew it. When Michael Jackson was on, it was like, dude, I'm like Donkey Kong. I'd do all the Michael Jackson moves. I didn't realize that Courtney doesn't. That's interesting that she's not like big into it. I mean, she likes being around that scene. She goes dancing and all that, but she's not super into it. She's not, especially the structure of it. Yeah, so she's not like, Katrina will go line dancing, salsa dancing, all that stuff with her friends. That's like they like to do that. You know what sucks about all of it, Adam?

31:26It's like, well, I mean, we're okay. We're married now, but dancing is very attractive to women. Oh, yeah. You can move? Her dad is 74 and he can still be picking up girls half his age at 74 because he can really dance. It's fish in a barrel, you guys. Shut up. Shut up, dude. It's funny. Because this is normal. Most dudes, they're embarrassed or they won't get into it. And so it's just like, it's easy, dude. I just don't enjoy it. I'm not a person. I don't care. My buddy, have you met my buddy Mike that I drive with? Have you met him? He's kind of a smaller frame guy, blonde hair, blue eye, pale skin.

32:05like he's he's really good at salsa dancing okay like that's and i feel like when you're like the the pale white skin dude that goes in there like if you're a chick that's in there you're mopping up bro you're the only you're the only pale skin white dude in there that's salsa dancing for sure for sure that's you're picking up all day long yeah you guys got all this you know i need to make up for that so that's my move just they start talking to he's like hold on a second Let's go. Just grab out on the dance floor. Watch what I can do. Stop talking. Just watch. Watch the hips. Adam and I are like, oh, this music's loud.

32:40Let's go outside and talk. Let's go have a conversation. Speaking of hips, all I could think about was on the elliptical. Whoa. Yeah. So you're trying to do more cardio because you just. I'm not doing. So I know I did it. Because we're so sedentary here. That's all it is. It sounds terrible, dude. I'm pushing calories really aggressively right now. And to just to, because I need, in order to hit like 220, 230 plus in grams of protein, I've got to be up there in calories. And I'm just not moving enough to not put body fat on with that high a calorie. And I'm not eating like super lean. I'm not like tracking.

33:16I'm like, I'm eating. I'm enjoying. I'm having ribeye. I'm doing stuff like that, right? And typically, I think I shared this with you off air. Like when I reverse diet, hit protein, and I'm training like I am right now, Now, I have this, I end up kind of just naturally kind of hit this Goldilocks zone where I'll lean out a little bit. I'll build muscle. And so I'm just getting bigger and I'm building. And I'm not really leaning out much. And so I think it's just because of our inactivity. So inactive. Yeah. I mean, I could, so I have to. People don't know we're in here all day. Yeah, yeah. We go for one walk.

33:50It's literally, how far is our walk? That's embarrassing. Not far enough. It's not far enough. because even when we do our walk and our daily steps, I'll only hit, like, on a normal day, 5 ,000 steps. Yeah. So I have to get on there for a good 45 minutes to an hour of, like, walking or elliptical to push 8 ,000 to 10 ,000 steps. So that's what I'm doing is just to do that. Otherwise, I've got to really tighten the diet up, and I'm just not in the mood to do that right now. Like, I'm still... Plus, it's good to move. Yeah, plus, it's good to move. It's just good for you. Yeah, yeah, no. It's got to facilitate recovery.

34:22It's good for my heart. It's all those things. And so it's not cardio. It's like zone two type stuff. I'm walking on a slight incline. I'm elliptical. Just moving. Doing this. Justin. Everybody can see how good you dance. I know. Exactly. There's a taste of it. You're suppressing it, Adam. I've seen you on that elliptical deal. I know what you're doing. Oh, speaking of hitting protein, are you using crisp power to try and hit that? Oh, yeah. No, those have become daily snacks for me, for sure. In fact, I've gone through. I got to see if we have more in the back because I've gone through all my favorite flavors.

34:56The only flavor, I love every flavor. I'm not the big fan of the cinnamon ones. Oh, it's sweet. Yeah. It's because the other ones are all savory. Yeah, I like all the other ones. All the other ones I love. And cinnamon's not bad because I've heard other people on the staff and stuff like cinnamon. It's just that when I have a chip, it's kind of, yeah. Well, no, I mean, that's like a graham cracker taste to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I want like a salty sesame seed, sea salt, the cheddar ones. How do you keep the staff from eating them? Did you put on the box from Adam only? No, what I do is I just grab like five, six at a time.

35:29I throw them in my gym bag. Because they're gone. They don't last. The team just crushes them. Oh, I know. Cole will eat like four in a row. I know. I actually will. I'll pair it with like that and like jerky. And I'm getting like, it's like a high, you have 26 grams coming from the Chris Power. And then some jerky, another 20, 30 grams. Yeah, 50 grams right there. 50-something grams, something I can eat while I'm driving. Well, I've been loving my kids, like, paying attention to all those numbers of protein, and then they'll see, you know, that there's 26 grams, something of protein in there.

35:59So they're eating all the bags, like, and it's gone. You got teenage boys, dude. Dude, I just can't compete with it now. All right, are we going to talk about the Epstein stuff? Oh, God. What was it? 3 ,000 documents? Dude, can I just tell it's like 3 million. Okay, wait, before you get into it, because I heard a funny thing, and it was a comedian though, so I don't know if it's true, that the government had used Word to redact a lot of the things, so all you had to do was upload it to unredact it. I didn't know that. Yeah. I don't know if this is true. Is that true? I don't know. I heard something like that.

36:35Yeah. Yeah. So I heard - I heard something about the black markout was like - It was done in Word, and so you could just upload the file to Word and then - That's what I heard. And then - Maybe they did that intentionally. yeah right all right you know it's dude can i it's all intentional there's no accident i don't want to get in too much detail because it's so dark i can't spend too much time reading into some of the stuff because it's so dark but yet you do though listen the conspiracy theorists well all you gotta see is wake up dude like you know stop calling people conspiracy theorists listen listen it's this is it seems like there is literally a satanic cult that runs the world How crazy does that sound that I just said that?

37:17Read the stuff. These are the most powerful people in the world, and I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. It's Republicans, Democrats, it's religious leaders, it's billionaires. It's all black bullets. It's a black male economy. And it's not just sex trafficking. It's dark, satanic ritual stuff. Yes, it is. Epstein's bank account was named Ball. Did you see that? Yeah. You know what Ball is, Doug? That's one of the ancient false gods of the Old Testament. it's actually a demon you're actually worshiping a demon he named his bank account that it's crazy so you you you need to still go watch the 1975 netflix documentary because that's what's giving me balance to all this stuff is that is that this has been what you're talking about right now is not new news this has been happening forever since the beginning since the beginning yes okay but everybody's just discarded it well i mean well now it's just coming out to your defense i agree here's where I'll get behind what you're saying Justin which is everybody needs to calm down with the calling the conspiracy theories people that have been saying this for a long time like I'm over that too I'm over I'm more like choke the snake's head stop like you know infighting it's so like ridiculous to me what we fight about and it's like you see stuff like this and nobody's getting arrested and nobody's paying the price.

38:41Justin what do you do with everyone one i know so what do you do you exactly it's dude this is it's a conundrum no dude listen you may you may or may not believe in god and the devil but they sure do they sure do you read some of the stuff that they are talking about what they're doing and it's like it is wild it's crazy and it's like people it's people you wouldn't even think are in there did you see that he has emails did you see that thousand a thousand dude wow i wouldn't have seen that coming i had no idea oh yeah dude you want to name on that like rise and fall well i'm getting crushed now that what makes me so curious about things like that is like especially because that's i would consider that in our space yeah it is it's it's interesting to me we've been doing this for a really long time uh i'd like to think that we're have a pretty good pulse of our space it's always interesting to me when somebody like him comes up out of nowhere and is like on 60 minutes uber famous out of nowhere and he's saying smart stuff but he's saying anything different than what we've been talking about for 10 years like that's the part i'm always interested in these people that are saying a lot of things that we've been saying forever yeah but all of a sudden they're on 60 minutes and they're all over the news and they're on a number one podcast and they're like rubbing elbows with all these important that's interesting to me and i it makes me wonder about a lot of other people who we've seen that happen with if if it's all true if it's all true because there's some like a big part of me is like it can't be true but it keeps coming out but if if it's true what you're looking at are the people that run hollywood banking system governments biotech tech so for you to succeed at the upper at the top level in any of those spaces you have these gatekeepers that are a part of this group yeah you gotta follow 50 cent dude that's who you're gonna follow any rap stars that are dropping bombs where you gotta follow 50 cent 50 cents been on this stuff he's gonna be making documentary after documentary after documentary after all this is sitting cat williams have been talking been calling this well what's crazy to me is that you have this uh because let's stay on the spiritual side again you can believe it or not but they see they definitely do there's a revival that's happening on the good side and it's one of the craziest biggest revivals we've seen in modern history and it's very unique because it's young men in particular simultaneously you have all this other stuff coming out so if you believe in this stuff there seems this seems to be like a spiritual war is heating up so where's it go yeah yeah i i think for good balance i think everybody should watch the documentary that i keep talking about because i just scared everybody yeah i just think that what the thing that the thing that is more more unique today than anything else in my opinion is not any of the stuff that we're talking about right now all that stuff has been happening forever yeah but every nobody's ever thought it was real though yeah you think nobody has ever of course there's always mainstream it's only mainstream because everybody everything is mainstream because everybody's on twitter and social media now that's that's it it's the only difference the only difference is the conspiracy theorists have a louder voice and can talk more about it i mean people have been saying this stuff forever it's just that it's in our face 24 7 on these feeds and so everybody's an alarmist about every single thing but if you just that's why that documentary was so good for me to watch it just went like man it was i would way rather be here today than with all this crazy shit you're talking about than 1975 with nuclear bombs getting ready to go off on us with freaking serial killers happening it just seems like now we're we know obviously know a lot more stuff yeah this is just crazy to me you guys this is just wild since when did we ever see emails and documents that were this so that the between all these powerful so the here's a positive okay the positive side of this is that it is much harder for these evil people to hide yeah than it was in 1975 in 1975 it was much easier for these people to hide and not be known about and the secret societies and the control and the power was easier because there was only a few media outlets they had to control where now with this ability that everybody has their phone and can be an investigator and like...

42:49It's almost more disheartening though because nobody's paying the consequence for it. Well, only because you know. Ignorance is bliss. That's why. Yeah, yes and no. Like I think back then there'd be examples they'd make of people and they'd get arrested. But it's like you have faith in your government. You don't have faith in your government now. 1975, there was no faith in the government. I'm not a crook. This is Watergate. This is all the... But there were sides that did and there were sides that didn't. Yeah, but that was the narrative they wanted you to know. You're right, right. That's the narrative they wanted you to know.

43:23They made you feel like you were getting wins. They made you feel like there was a fault. Well, I think that's the point Justin's making is that you felt better because you thought that... And my point is ignorance is bliss. There's an outcome of a consequence. So it's like, okay, so do you feel better with it all happening, but you being blind to it and so you feel better and go to bed every night and you think it's or do you would you rather be out in the open it's so much like that scene in the matrix remember that scene in the matrix where that one dude he gets unplugged and he makes a deal with the machines and he goes he wants to forget everything he wants to go back in the matrix he wants to be rich yeah because the real world was just so terrible so terrible yeah and I get it I get it that's exactly what we're talking about right now the curtain's been you know like it's been opened up and so you know we've got this insight now with how the real power dynamic works you know and who's really like pulling the strings and so i don't know like is that good is that bad like it's it's i'm indifferent to it it's just like it's one of those things like i it's nothing until somebody actually goes to jail i mean you can argue uh both sides like uh like sal brings up the point how dangerous it is for a nobody to trust government right like that's a that's a dangerous place to be uh but then you could also say that if there's anything that was ever going to unify us it would be things like this coming out that both sides are evil and bad and us and then all of us going like listen power vacuums are never good so it's like you know what ends up happening when you let's say look at every revolution has ever happened like this let's say we threw every let's say for whatever reason we just got rid of everybody in power started over you have this power vacuum and the people that will come up and take it probably not good either so i don't know that's why i'm like i almost feel like every this this the way that they're releasing these is to desensitize everybody and also to get everybody kind of frozen where you're just there's inact there's an action like what do we like what do we do with this oh man yeah it's a bit of a playbook though like to your point is to get people to not trust anything right like that's that's that's a dangerous place for society okay we i mean obviously people are calling for stuff to get done here but are emails enough to incriminate somebody no but there's a lot of stuff they didn't release there's a lot of videos but there's a yeah there's a lot more yeah that was just um honestly that was a retaliation and and you see what's moved watch what's happening next and where we're moving next you know potentially for war yeah some people are saying if that happens and you know for sure yeah for sure yeah i'm super skeptical of like i would have never guessed skeptical of like why these people why this why now for that exact reason it's like why not all of it at once because they know what they put out right they know what they're releasing so what are they not releasing i i just think it's crazy that it had you told me 15 years ago alex jones would be right a lot i would have been like get out of my face i know but he keeps coming out to be remember that video he was a long time ago where he filmed that like ritual group with those elites and they're like yeah worshiping this big owl statue now that's that's real he didn't grove yeah it was real it is real that was all real dude agent provocateurs are real like all that stuff's real it's just fine again these are all like parts of society people just don't want to acknowledge because it's like it's you just want to go about your day and like work and do the thing and contribute and just hope things are working.

46:52But it's like, you know, once you see all this, it is a bit disheartening. Totally, totally. Speaking of disheartening, you were talking about an injury you had earlier. I want to hear what you did from still. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was – A couple weeks ago now, right? Yeah, it was probably two weeks ago. And, dude, I think that's the one thing that I could pinpoint. Like I feel older. Like I do feel like it's different now. The way that my body still holds on to this injury pain. I used to just bounce right back and everything was cool. And the worst part is it wasn't like a real injury. It's like a deep core strain to where it's like I feel unstable around my hips and lower back.

47:35What did you do? So it was a reaction. I was going really fast because I was bored. All day I'm trying to teach my son to snowboard, and, like, he just learned. And so I'm, like, going really slow. And, like, on a snowboard, it's brutal because, like, you just burn your legs up, like, going that speed and, like, having to stand and wait and all that kind of stuff. So it was, like, one of the last runs. And I'm going down this village run, and it's, like, kind of flat. And I'm just picking up all the speed because it's, like, ice, and it's not, like, you know, like, soft snow at all. And I go off trail.

48:11and so i go off trail and then i'm gonna kind of weave back and and i i saw an opening where i could weave back and i didn't see that there was like all these mogul and jumps like in between to get back to the trail and i'm like boom i'm going like really fast like right into it and so i'm having to like i don't know have you ever seen like motocross where they go over those like like i'm doing that but like literally i thought i was gonna eat shit and like i was like how am i going to crash should i roll like i'm thinking about all this as i'm like going over them because like i'm hitting it and i'm like my body's doing all this and in it like trying to like over i was like over correcting and tightening everything and then i landed and then i'm like oh and uh i kept going back down to to the end and realized that oh my god i like strained everything really bad it was just literally like my body holding my spine together and like i heard it you know what muscles do you think you pull oh my god like yeah erector spiny like everything oh god that's when you get your deep core messed up it's now you can't do nothing yeah yeah like i like i saw i'm i'm doing like hip bridges i'm doing like bird dogs the weakest workouts you've ever seen now now now going into that looking back because i know at least in my case every time i've done this because i've done this so many times is i'm not training appropriately for what i'm about to go do you know and that's the big difference it's less about that we're older it's just that we just don't do any of that stuff anymore and then i how do you train i put gasoline on it without yeah necessarily you could do he could be doing he could be doing like and that's why it's interesting to hear him do it because if all of us he's the best when it comes to like rotational strength and core strength and anti-rotational stuff.

49:56You and I probably would have herniated a disc or something. Yeah, I've just learned. I just don't do it. I think I just overcorrected so hard. I'm so angry still about my pec tear because I did all the mobility work for my lower body because I was wakeboarding. And so I'm not even thinking about my upper body. I'm thinking about my lower body. I'm jumping, I'm carving, I'm turning, I'm doing all this stuff. I need my hips, my ankles, my knees. that needs to be and i didn't address my upper body and so it was like on the weakest little fall it just tore my pec and i went what an asshole move to you know do all the work in my lower body and to not address my upper body and then to go out and tear my pec on like a week for you doing like the bpc and all that now well yeah so that's i'm just gonna i just started that protocol and i'm gonna see if that i'm sure it helps it fast yeah my cousin uh i was just Talking to one of my cousins who had an ankle.

50:51Just ankle mobility was bad, and it was hurting. He started using BPCs. Like, dude, is this stuff like, how does this work? Yeah. My ankle feels fine. Yeah, I think I actually might just go to dumbbells and suspension trainer, and I might do a phase of that for a month or so. That's good. Just get back to connecting. Well, I've got your peptides finally handled. 15 companies later, and having conversations with some of these. Yeah, so. We're working with, we're finally found a better company. Yeah, no, the thing that was, the most difficult part for me was, one, the black eye that I felt like the partnership with Transcend ended up being for us as a brand.

51:33To the point where, you know, there was lots of discussion about not doing anything in that space at all. The problem with that is that we have so many people that utilize peptides and HRT and stuff like that that I feel also like obligated, like we're doing a disservice to them to not find a good brand. And I went through it. So in our mind pump hormones, you'll see like just threads of people shouting out names and brands and companies. And I went through all the biggest, most reputable companies out there and still was like, I didn't feel anything until we met Phil. And then when we met Phil and sat down and talked.

52:12And the thing that was so important to me was all the negative things that we got was the pushy, the pushiness on the sales side, the cost, the cost. Right. per everything that was on there was just like super expensive. The delay to get medications, the lack of communication to an actual doctor. So these are all things like I had to solve all of those if we were going to go with anybody. And so I feel really good about that now because all of those boxes are checked. And so the official announcement will come out in the MP Hormones forum. So I'll probably be doing that later tonight. Are we linked up to them now?

52:57No, we're not. No, we're not. I mean, actually, by the time this episode goes live, yes. But I mean, if you want to know what that is, go to our Facebook forum, MP Hormones. You'll see the official announcement in there where we'll have links and everything going on. Yes, Mind Pump Hormones. The page, not MP Hormones. But mphormones.com is our link to go. The Facebook forum is not MP Hormones? No, it's Mind Pump Hormones. Our link is mphormones.com. If you go there, then you can get yourself there. I thought our forum was labeled that also. No. Oh, I was just on there yesterday and said MP Hormones on it.

53:29So that's weird. So maybe the whole Facebook name and link is what you're saying, but on the actual logo of it, it says MP Hormones. So that's something. Yeah, that's the logo only. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Well, that's all. Well, they're good, and their prices are ridiculous. Yeah. Ridiculous. In a good way. In a good way. We recorded an episode with him and he told us the actual cost of these things. Yeah. And I can't believe how much they get marked up with other companies, which is kind of astonishing. So, and they have no salespeople. It's only doctors. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that the membership includes quarterly meetings with a doctor.

54:09Every patient meets with a doctor. It's not, they have no sales reps. The prices are way less. you're within 48 to 72 hours you're with the doctor within 48 to 72 hours the medication is at your doorstep i mean that stuff was just yep those were the things that i was just like more concerned about that and for the audience that cares i mean this is uh this is by far uh one of the smallest offers to us we i didn't want any ties to uh commissions or sales or anything like that whatsoever the way we wanted to structure the partnership is like listen we have a huge audience. There's a lot of people that use this stuff.

54:49We do not want to be motivated by sales or tied to that whatsoever. And so there were a lot of offers on the table that were a lot more money, but there was no way we were going to do business unless we could solve those things. And so I feel really good about it. And I'm glad that, uh, I mean, I apologize for the people that went through all the shit that they went through, um, with transcend and how long it took, but I didn't want to just sign with the first company. So I feel really good about what we're doing now. So that's exciting. Z-Biotics is the world's first pre-alcohol probiotic drink that's been genetically engineered.

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56:12Back to the show. Our first caller is Darren from Ontario. Hey, Darren. How you doing, Darren? How you doing? Good. This is surreal. How can we help you? So I'll start off with my email. Basically, I hope you're all doing well. I've been reaching out because I need some expert advice. I'm hitting a really heavy plateau, 47, soon to be 48, and been working out for years. Uh, lately, uh, just, oh geez, you know what? It's just basically that 47, 48, I'm trying to figure out what to do. I've tried every routine I can think of every supplement I can think of. And I, I don't feel I'm getting the gains, but I know for a fact that as you get older, it's more difficult, right?

56:55So I don't know where to go. I don't know what else to do. All right. Well, let's dive in a little bit and see what you're doing. So, um, let's talk to start with diet. Uh, what does that look like? I currently, I have gallstones. so the amount of food I can eat how often I can eat is limited because it just causes pain so I try to get the protein in I try to get at least 150 in a day 150 grams but it is not easy and I don't know if it's just poor choice of food or whatnot but diet does need work okay and is just is just low fat high protein okay for you or is it is it like what what because I know typically it's fat.

57:31Okay. So all protein bothers you. It's not all protein. It's just, it's, it takes, it's harder to digest. Okay. So I try to do basic proteins. And you, and you use, uh, um, digestive enzymes when you eat fats? Yes. Yeah. Uh, by all salts, I believe is one of them. Yeah. Good. Okay. So lean proteins are typically good with gallstones in my experience and, uh, protein shakes. Does those work for you? Yeah. Those I have no issue with. Okay, good. So, So what's your target body weight? It's like 190. Okay. Would adding another shake be okay? Like a 40-gram shake? Okay. Sure. I would start there with your diet.

58:09Do you know what your calories look like? No. I don't track macros that crazy. Okay. And the progress you're looking for is muscle building? Is it fat loss? For the longest time, it was muscle building. But like I said, I'm getting to the higher ages. So I just want strength gains and longevity. like so I've done several tough mudders I've done the Spartan Beast I've done a lot of OCRs so I need running in it as well so I know the muscle gain you guys had a podcast like beginning of January where you're mentioning about trying to stay a runner and big at the same time is almost impossible so I'm kind of at the point now where I'm just like good enough to be healthy good enough to have some size good enough to be in shape okay so this would be a nice mix uh program how many days a week are you training now and what does that look like i do ppl right now and one day is a run and that's four days so four days a week of lifting weights plus one day of strength training no three days lifting and one day running oh that's only four well that's not bad yeah yeah i can do more i just that's that's the current routine how's your activity outside of those exercise days like what do you ever see your steps like are you active throughout the day the i work friday saturday sunday 12 hours and i'm usually putting in 15 000 steps okay you move on okay that's good and then tell me about the ppl how long are you in the gym and what are you doing usually 45 to an hour 15 and it's your basic ai generated routine it's not the best i'm gonna be honest with you yeah so two things i would do right out the gates is i would i would have you switch to a different program you can keep the running i would do something like maps 15 which is daily but short uh and i would bump the protein uh but tracking might be something you might want to start doing tracking your calories or macros just to see where you're at because otherwise it's kind of a guessing game well yeah this is why this is so important sal too is that if you're doing things like tough mudders and spartans and you're running and you're low protein and you're low calorie this is like a recipe for a hard plateau because then the body is not getting enough of the fuel that it needs to build and nutrients it needs to build muscle it's barely getting enough fuel to do all the activity that you're doing and so it's just hanging on and so that's okay and so figuring that out would really help because then it would be like like let's just take an example like if if i find out we actually tracked and we find out you're eating 130 120 to 130 grams of protein a day and you're only eating 2100 to 2300 calories and you're stepping as much as you are.

1:00:41We're at a hard plateau and we need a reverse diet. Like I've got to, we've got to, we got to back off all the volume. We got to slowly increase calories. We got to try and get the protein up and we got to build some muscle if we want to speed your metabolism up. Otherwise that's what's going on. And that's super common by the way, is like somebody finds what, and I just gave some random numbers. It could still even be higher than that. And we need to do that. But like, that's typically when I hear somebody is doing all this as active as you are training what you're doing right now if we're struggling with protein intake and we're our calories are low that is like a recipe for like just your body kind of staying right there and i wouldn't be surprised if the if a maps 15 protocol actually i think that's probably going to you're going to see some strength gains from doing that just that alone yeah ppl and adding your protein ppl is okay but you know high volume once a week versus volume spread out throughout the whole week.

1:01:34And with active individuals, these kind of small, short, daily strength training workouts seem to work a lot better. They just do. People just tend to get way better progress with something like that. So I'll send you that program, and you can follow that. And you have a home gym, or do you go to the gym? I got a full home gym, so I'm basically on my own. I don't have the group of people to help push, so some days it's difficult, but I just, you know, I do what I can, because I know I need to. Oh, you'll love it. That's better. You'll love it. that's better yeah it's two it's two lifts a day yeah you go in there and you do two lifts you get out every day i honestly think switch that's not an issue at all yeah yeah yeah maps 15 bump the the protein shake in there i think you should see a difference just from that alone yeah and then and then i would i would track to get an idea where we're at calorie wise darren are you in our forum too or no no i'm not i'm gonna have doug put you in our private forum and then i i love an update from yeah yeah so we'll send the program over to you get you in the forum and then just give us kind of an update after a couple weeks of following the program bumping the protein and then we'll kind of see where you're at from there and then we can make adjustments and darren if you want something more individualized if you want some coaching through the process you can send us a message and i'll get one of my coaches online what's a much larger investment but they're there with you the whole time individualizing it and that's always of course the best option but you let us know if that's something you're interested in otherwise Otherwise, I'd go MAPS 15, protein, and you should see strength gains within two weeks.

1:02:59If it's working, that's what you'll see. Perfect. So double shakes and MAPS 15. I can definitely handle that. All right, dude. I'll send that to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Check in with us in the forum, brother. I will. I appreciate everything you guys do. I've been listening to you for a year, so thank you. Right on, Derek. You got it. you know with this with the it's interesting right when you look at the data on strength training even when the volume is controlled doing it all in one workout versus two and three, you tend to see better gains even in the controlled data with more frequent but in my experience it's even better than that, people tend to be more consistent they tend to be less fatigued it works with people's schedules better, builds better behaviors and I believe as you get older it becomes even more valuable because fatigue sets in so much if I'm doing 15 sets in one workout versus five sets, three workouts, or even two sets, five workouts or whatever.

1:03:51I think really our environment has impacted this a lot. I think back in the day, it might have made more sense to dedicate this hour to two hours at the gym, but now with everybody's lifestyle, this makes so much more sense to not impede on it. I bet my last dollar it's what I said. Protein? Low protein, low calorie. Probably. Lots of activity. You said the gallbladder stone thing. So he's not eating enough. Well, yeah. He said he tries to hit 150, which tells – It's probably closer to 120. Which means he's probably 120 or less many days, which means he's probably pretty low calorie too. He's stepping 15 ,000 steps a day.

1:04:31He's running one day a week, and he's doing a push-pull routine that takes an hour long. Oh, yeah. I guarantee he's – And let's just say his diet is clean and perfect on those days, And then occasionally he has something over that's not good for him, and he knows that. And that's just a recipe for your body, just kind of staying right there. You're not leaning out. You're not building any muscle. You're not seeing any results. But he's sustaining. He's able to do the stuff he's doing, but he's not getting the change he wants. I'm willing to bet he's landing in the lower 2 ,000-calorie range, maybe mid or really low on the days he eats well, and then when he days when he kind of goes off.

1:05:10But it averages out to what you're saying. Exactly. Exactly. Our next caller is Craig from Georgia. What's up, Craig? How you doing, Craig? Hey. How's it going, guys? How you doing? Good, man. How can we help you? Doing pretty good. You know, first of all, thanks for everything you guys do. I kind of think of myself as an OG. I've been listening probably since 2017 or so. Maybe not original. Wow. But that's pretty close. That is. That is. And so, yeah. So I've written in a few questions. You guys chose this one after many years. It's probably the easiest one I've asked, but that's okay. I have lots of y 'all's programs.

1:05:49And so thank you for that. Because after many, many years of training, it takes the guesswork out. And so y 'all make solid programs. And so I normally just follow them from anabolic to, you know, split to performance, all of them. And so I'm running through anabolic advanced right now. For the second time, I probably got it right after you guys released it. And I have a question about priming for the failure days and warming up for those. So I've been training for probably 28 years or so. Pretty high absolute strength and strength endurance. And so when I warm up and it says to do one or two warm up sets, I find I'm not really warm after one or two warm up sets.

1:06:36And so I've tried a few different mechanisms, either doing fewer reps with, you know, more sets to get to a heavier load before I hit my failure sets. I've tried just doing, you know, straight sets, working up until I feel like I'm fatigued. But then the total volume gets really, really high. I normally leave out the optional exercises because the volume is too high, which I've learned over time. In my 40s, I should be doing less. And I'll just reiterate what you guys always say. 15 is probably my favorite program. because that's what I find is the best. And so, yeah, I just want you guys' input on how you prepare or what your intent was on preparing for those sets.

1:07:14Yeah, no, good question. I'll give you a little context, Craig. Obviously, you're a big guy. You're strong. I see some of the numbers you sent us, if you don't mind me going over them. But, you know, you're doing your dumbbell chest press, you know, 100-plus-pound dumbbells, back squats over 400 pounds. And so with MAPS Anabolic Advanced, you do a couple warm-up sets, and then you go to failure. but you're so strong that it takes you longer to warm up. I mean, you just jump into a back squat, you know, back squats with 400 pounds, go to failure. The risk of injury is always higher. It's always much higher when you're lifting that much weight.

1:07:47And so you do as many sets as you need to feel ready. And now here's the thing with the volume. It's not a lot of volume if it's a warmup set. What you don't want to do are working sets. So sometimes a warmup set looks more like a set. and so when I'm working up let's say I'm going to do a set of failure to squats I just keep ramping up and the intensity is like light moderate and I just keep going until I feel like yeah I'm ready and sometimes that takes five it depends on the exercise squats it could take as many as six when I'm doing a press it might be three or four if I'm doing a row I could warm up real fast for some reason so take as many as you need before you get to failure but don't make them working sets Yeah, keep the reps.

1:08:31So like when I'm working up to a heavy squat like that or a heavy deadlift, I'm going from a plate to two plates to three plates, right? But I'm only doing five reps. Like I'm not going to do 10. Even though I could do 15 reps of the three plates, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to get fatigued at all. But I do want to get my body acclimated to a little more weight, a little more weight, and then I get to my working set. And so Sal's right. Like when we write these programs, we're thinking of the general population, not someone like you per se and so if I was coaching you would be like oh we could take a few more warm up sets to get ready to put 400 pounds on our back that's totally understandable and here's the other thing I'll say to someone like you you're so strong instead of doing 405 for 19 because that's what you wrote up there which is a lot I would go 405 or 375 and I would make it I'd make myself fail way earlier by pausing, by going slow, because you're going to get minimal returns on getting stronger at this point.

1:09:37I mean, if you get your squat from 405 for 19 reps to 425 for 19, you're not going to see tons of gains, but your risk of injury went through the roof because it's a lot of weight. So I'm just, you know, depending on the exercise, I'm like, I'm not adding weight. I'm just going to make it feel harder. And so I'm slowing down. I'm pausing at the bottom. I'm squeezing. like can I make myself fail at 10 with this weight that's my mentality that's funny I was just gonna say that but also too even in the warm-up in the warm-up sets grip in the bar extra tight adding a lot more tension as you're going through those reps like all the way down the kinetic chain so you're even maybe a little bit of a pause just to make sure you know you're getting everything really fired up like there's a way to do that like intrinsically versus just kind of going through the sets and trying to work your way up to that warmup.

1:10:26Totally. Yeah. I like, I like that. I like all those ideas. Those are always good. I'm always trying to mix things up there. So I appreciate you guys giving me that insight. Sometimes it's good to just get in your heads and see where you're thinking, but I love all of y 'all's programs. Yeah. I appreciate that, man. Yeah. I stopped writing my own programs probably about five years ago. And so I just cycle through you guys and I'm pointing people to you guys all the time. If you've got a couple more minutes, I have another follow-up question. Yeah, let's hear it. It's related to training youth, actually.

1:10:59So my son is in sixth grade. He's actually a pretty high-level power lifter for an 11-year-old. Oh, cool. Awesome. But I started doing a Bible and Barbell Club with him and his buddies. And so I was curious your thoughts, and this maybe goes more to Justin because I know he's done some of this in the past. I'm doing like 45 minute Bible study and then we do like 45 minutes of lifting. And so I've been playing around with rotating the major lifts, you know, one week versus the next. But I wanted your idea. Is it better to do that? Or you think I should just say, okay, I'm going to spend four weeks focusing on squats and we're just going to focus on squats and teach the squat.

1:11:41And then, you know, didn't do a four week cycle of just teaching the deadlift and then teaching maybe bench press and just looking at the big movements because most of these kids It's just I'm finding kids don't move well. I think your ladder advice in terms of like focusing just because. Just on one, right? Yeah, just one. Yeah, yeah. Just so they can learn the mechanics of it and really work their way through that. Are you training them all as like a group? Yeah, it's a group. It's like we have between four and seven. And so you can't do too much in 45 minutes when you got a bunch of sixth graders trying to goof off and lift weights.

1:12:18Oh, yeah. You guys get in line and stay focused. Yeah, exactly. And you can work on tempo with that. So you get them all kind of in sync. I found that, you know, with kids, like just having them, you know, together and splitting them off in pairs really helps. So you can kind of like empower one to, you know, reinforce what you're teaching and watch for these certain things in their movements. That helps a lot. So you have an extra pair of eyes. But yeah, that way you can kind of walk around, you know, you're, you're kind of, uh, educating them all at the same time. And it's, it's a lot more, um, effective for them to focus on that versus like kind of jumping them to the next lift.

1:12:57So how many times a week did you say you see them? Well, we started, we started doing it at two times a week, but, uh, just because of other sports, we're transitioning just once a week. So we only have once a week that we're doing this. it's really to get them you know really studying god's word but then also have them most of them are youth athletes too so they're playing other sports oh yeah i bet for sure baseball seasons baseball season's re-upping up for my son um and like other kids play other sports soccer and so i don't want them doing too much i just want them really learning the movements and staying healthy yeah you're you're on the right track if you're only seeing them one time a week the whole month would be about squats the whole month every time they come in we're just we're practicing the movement so with that and like you said it's more really about the bible study and introducing them to some a good movement you know i'm saying this is so great so i don't know if you're at idea i hope you know i mean you realize what an incredible impact you're making on these young men by doing that's incredible yeah i love it there's there's three things i've been doing for 20 plus years studying the bible lifting weights and and studying science and so i'm a scientist as well and so i i try to bring all those things in and try to teach some of these kids some of these things as well.

1:14:03That's awesome. Yeah. The two things to consider with the workout is, you know, the big thing with kids is always, uh, can I get them to enjoy this? Cause if they develop a good relationship, they'll want to keep doing it. And so the challenge, maybe I'm wrong, but the challenge might be like, well, I don't, I want to keep them interested. So I'm cycling through the exercises cause I don't want them to get bored, but really they're going to get so excited seeing their numbers go up. I mean, if you squat every week, they're going to see gains in that. That's probably gonna psych them up oh yeah they they go through the roof i mean it's just just the movement learning of that every week they're putting up prs to them because it's just like they they know how to move better the week after week that's so great so it helps my son too because he's you know and and all like a couple of them are starting to one of one of his buddies is going to compete with him in a few weeks as well and so they're all like excited about that i mentioned like hey if you know if you guys want to stick with it we'll we'll put the team together and and go all go compete in youth powerlifting next year.

1:14:57And so they're all excited about that. That's awesome, man. That's cool. Cool. Can we send you anything to help you out? Do you have our mobility programs? Is there anything we can help you out with? Uh, I have, I have a lot of your programs. I have all the prime prime pro. Um, all right. Uh, I, I don't have symmetry. You have symmetry. Oh yeah. That's my, I, so my go-to programs are symmetry and 15. Okay. I've been hurt too much now. So I back off. So about once a year, I try to push it like you guys do. And then you end up hurting. You're like, ah, crap. But I push it. I just need to go back to 15 or symmetry.

1:15:36I'm going to have Doug, when we hang up, I'm going to have Doug message you and get your address. I'd love to send a package for all the boys. Oh, yeah. That'd be awesome. They would love that. See if I can find one more flags. Yeah, if you ever want to talk to a youth athlete, my son's about to set all the American records for the third time in powerlifting. No way. That's so cool. Can I ask you what the numbers are? Yeah, so he's moving up a weight class to 48 kilos, so that's like 106 pounds almost. And his best in the gym right now is 215 squat. He has a 105-pound bench and a 230 deadlift.

1:16:15Already at 11. He has no idea that he's that strong. He always thinks that he's doing horrible. I'm like, dude, you've already set a bunch of American record. you're all right. He's going to be a monster. That's awesome, man. That's so cool. I'm waiting for puberty to kick in and then it's going to blow up. Oh, God. Look out. Look out. Look out. Good for you, dude. Good for you. That's great, man. Thanks, man. Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Hey, I appreciate it, guys. I love everything you guys do. Keep it up. I'll keep pushing people your way just because you make solid programs and give solid advice.

1:16:45I appreciate that, man. Thanks, Greg. Yeah, thanks for the support. Thanks. That's the coolest thing ever. Yeah, yeah. You got to get his address. And we'll send a cool care package to all the kids over there. That'd be cool. That is so great, man. Yeah, really uplifting to hear all that. With this training, I mean, that was easy, of course, easy answer to his question. Just for people listening, when you get that strong, you have to figure out how to make the weight feel heavier because always adding weight to the bar, it starts to get not good. I didn't realize until you said it that he said four.

1:17:16I saw the 405. I didn't see by 19. 19, yeah. Yeah, he's a beast, bro. If you're doing 405 for 19, you've got like a 600 back squat. Yeah, you're strong. You're real strong. What a great idea, Bible and barbells. What a great thing for young men. That should take off. Dude, I love that. Such a great way to do it, too. Just all month long, we're focusing on the squat. Every day we meet. We do 45 minutes. We do the Bible. So great. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. Great to meet, dude. Our next caller is Billy from Alberta. Hey, what's up, man? What's up, Billy? Hey, guys. How are you? Good, man. How are you doing?

1:17:50How can we help you? Good, I'm doing fantastic. I have to say right away, really appreciate you guys taking my question. Your health and fitness advice, it really resonates with me. You guys have so much experience, and I think people can save themselves so many years of trial and error just by listening to your show. Finally, I have to acknowledge all the non-fitness stuff as well, because I absolutely love the banter and all the conspiracy talk. It feels like I'm kind of just hanging out with boys. Oh, yeah. They got me, bro. They got me finally. We converted him. Yeah, it's good. I'll jump right into my question here for the sake of time for you guys.

1:18:29In my teens and early 20s, I developed a passion for bodybuilding, strength, supplements, all that fun stuff. At the time, my focus was more on gaining as much muscle as possible. Never ate whole foods, but my diet was okay overall. I was super dedicated, and it paid off because to this day, it's still the strongest I've ever been. And the early passion never really faded, but life got hectic when I started university and I became more of a casual lifter at that time. Didn't have a specific goal in mind. I'd lift with no set routine, get my 10 ,000 steps, play sports, that kind of thing. Just really trying not to get that throughout the university years.

1:19:10So overall, I maintained my health, but I never really achieved the fitness and physique goal that I really had envisioned for myself. so at 36 years old i was struck with the realization that i kind of wasted a bunch of my prime years not really chasing that goal that was super important to me so last it will in june of 2025 uh it kind of felt like a switch flipped started lifting using the push pull routine push pull legs sorry that i created myself started tracking macros and my plan was to cut to about 12 body fat get to a point where i'm pretty lean and then reverse diet on that lean frame to pack on as much muscle as I could.

1:19:49Some stats, I'm 5 '10", currently 163 pounds, cut down from 196. Calories started off at 2 ,400, and I slowly pulled that back to about 1950, 2000. Held that caloric intake for a couple of months until weight loss became pretty slow. And throughout that whole process, I monitored my strength and didn't see any strength losses. So I felt as if I preserved as much muscle as I could. Overall, I felt pretty good throughout the whole process. Never felt overtrained. Never felt like I was starving myself. I legitimately felt okay. Here's the but. At the very beginning of my journey, I checked my testosterone levels because I'm curious, like most other guys.

1:20:35It was 565, which I kind of felt like, hey, I can bump those numbers up a little bit by doing all the things. I did my lab work recently again. This is about six, seven months later, and it had dropped to 308. I saw that result, and I figured there's no way that can be true after all this effort. I did another test 10 days later, and they were 118. And this is where I went from feeling good to not feeling great at all. I could feel the symptoms of low testosterone. It kind of confused me because I felt like I was doing all the right things to increase that number. You know, exercise, eating whole foods, protein, lifting, didn't feel overtrained.

1:21:15But I'm curious, is the long-term deficit the result for that drop in my testosterone? And yeah. Almost certainly. In fact, okay, so I just re-engaged on my kick, right? I'm coming up on two months right now and definitely needed to lose body fat. But I never start that way. even though I know I want to lose body fat and lean down is where I want to go if I haven't been dialed in eating consistently and lifting the first thing I go to is right away reverse diet even though I want to be leaner it's build that metabolism build muscle, lean into that and then come the other way you went and went let's cut, cut, cut from a guy who probably wasn't training really consistent wasn't really watching his diet very carefully to all of a sudden cutting calories and getting leaner and that your body needs more and you're lacking nutrients and your testosterone levels are telling you that right there.

1:22:13You would have been better off even at a higher body fat percentage saying, I'm going to go build some muscle on this thicker, chunkier frame that I have right now. I don't care. And not aggressively, but slowly increase calories and get to a place where you're eating more like 3 ,500 calories and then go to a cut at like 2 ,800 calories and watch your body fat just drop. That would have kept you at a healthier level testosterone. The low level testosterone tells me you went too low on calories for too long to get that body. And you got the body fat percentage down. And aesthetically, you probably look pretty good, but your body didn't like it at all.

1:22:56A prolonged deficit eventually will do that. Here's the other thing, too. I would also look at nutrient levels. So 2 ,000 calories of food brings 2 ,000 calories of nutrients. Most common ones that make a difference are zinc, vitamin D, and magnesium. Are you taking any supplements? Yeah. So I do creatine, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium. I do the ZMA stack. Okay, good. Vitamin K. So, again, I thought I was doing all the good stuff. You are. You're set. Then it's definitely the calories. You know, being as active as you are, man, you know, it's like 2 ,000 calories low for a long time. So I would reverse diet, focus on building.

1:23:36You'll see your numbers bounce back up. Any prolonged, here's the deal. Even if you reverse diet, you can do it for longer with a reverse diet, but a sustained deficit almost always depresses testosterone in men. Now, somebody who's obese, who then goes on a healthy diet, will tend to see a rise in testosterone at first. but if they stay in a deficit for a while, here's the signal, let me put it this way, the signal you're telling your body is that resources are hard to come by. And your body is going to say, we don't want you to reproduce. You're not going to be able to care for another mouth.

1:24:11You're not going to be able to feed another mouth, I should say. So it's just, you're just, 2 ,000 is too low for too long. So bump up to 2 ,500, right out the gates. By the way, the symptoms of overtraining, when someone starts to feel the symptoms, they've probably been overdoing it for a long time already. So it's like when you feel symptoms, it's like you've been there for a little while. And also in the context of where you're at calorie-wise, like you may not be overdoing it if you were eating 2 ,800 calories. That's right, that's right. But a guy who's eating so low of calories, and even though like in your head you're like, I wasn't killing, it was not like I was doing seven days a week or running like crazy.

1:24:48Like so maybe in your head you're not like, I doesn't feel like I'm crazy overtraining, but you are for a guy who's only eating 2 ,000 calories. Your body wants somewhere more like 2 ,500 to 2 ,800 calories to feel healthier. And so you doing that for a long period of time is overtrained, even though it may not feel like - It's more than you can support. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just so you know, though, because again, at some point in your life, this more than likely will help in because most of us have these ebb and flows of when we're on our kicks and when we're not. When you start off, unless you, even if you were somebody obese, I would still reverse diet first.

1:25:24I always do that first. I always, I go, you know, clean up the diet. And I don't know what your offenders are. If you're a guy that likes a glass of whiskey here and there, or you like ice cream like I do, or whatever your offenders are, like I get that out and I replace it with good food. It's like, I don't cut calories. I go, you know, 400, 500 calories of ice cream I was eating now becomes a steak and rice meal. And I go after my protein. I try and reverse diet, not aggressive first diet, but actually include good high nutrient foods and go build muscle. I'm right in the middle of that right now.

1:25:54I want to cut, but I'm getting my calories up to where they're more like 35, 3 ,800. And then I can go do that. And I'm, and I'm thicker than I'd like. And I started this journey knowing that I need to reduce body fat, but it starts with me building my metabolism first. Okay. Yeah. It kind of scared me a little. So I immediately flipped into a reverse diet and my plan was to actually use anabolic to uh yeah kind of hear that with a reverse diet but it does scare me a little to start adding 500 calories and i'm not sure where to go from there because i don't want to pack on too much fat anyways i'm all you're happy with my progress no you won't no you'll just get stronger and build muscle dude put put on put 500 calories back in the diet right away and just hang tight there for a couple weeks and and then i bet your weight will level out and you'll see strength go up and then do it another 500 you'll probably here's what here's what'll happen you you might actually get leaner.

1:26:44Yeah. Because you're not because you're gonna lose body fat, but because you're gonna build a little muscle with the current body fat that you have. So your percentage might actually go down through adding 500. In fact, that's what I would expect to happen with someone like you is I'd add 500 calories, a good strength training program, and they actually get leaner through that process. Yeah. So what's your what was your current what was your routine like at 2000 calories? What did your workout look like in your activity? So like I said, I would do a push pull legs uh which was a big change for me so growing up i always did you know the bro split for bodybuilding uh so that was a big change and i try and divide it up so i kind of break up the big heavy lifts like i wouldn't do squats with a deadlift day kind of thing i'm trying to break it up accordingly i felt like it was okay uh if i ever felt like i was sore i wasn't ready for that day i'd honestly just take an extra day off as a break like i'm pretty in tune with my body that way and that's why I felt as if I wasn't overtraining.

1:27:39However, I will say I do jiu-jitsu twice a week as well. How many days a week were you lifting? Three. Okay, so three plus two days of jiu-jitsu? Yeah. 2 ,000 calories? 100%. You're going to feel like a million bucks. Are you going to continue doing jiu-jitsu? Not for a while because I have a double MCL tear right now from jiu-jitsu. so I got a bit of a break. And you're injured, so your body definitely wants more calories. Hey, listen, risk of injury goes up in a prolonged calorie deficit as well. No, that's fair. Yeah, you were overtrained, bro. You're probably listening to metal while you're doing it too, right?

1:28:18Man, I always listen to metal jack. Yeah, you were actually overtrained. I would go 2 ,500 calories. Right away. Yeah, MAPS anabolic. You're not doing jiu-jitsu, which is great. By the way, when you get back to jiu-jitsu, MAPS 15 is your program. Yeah. So not MAPS anabolic, not PPL. It's going to be MAPS 15. So I want to continue to increase my calories even more past that 2 ,500. How does the further steps look like? Do I keep adding 500? Yeah, you can. You can. I would. I would go right to 2 ,500. I would probably hang you out there for about two weeks. I'm willing to bet two weeks in there and anabolic, you'll see the scale stay the same.

1:28:55And I don't really care what the number on the scale. I'm just looking for it to kind of level out and tell me you're kind of at maintenance now. and then once I know you're at maintenance, I'm going to go up another 500 calories and I'm going to just keep doing that. Now, you can wait four weeks. Yeah, it could be four weeks. Like, yeah, like if I, like let's say week one, we gain weight. Week two, you gain weight. I probably wouldn't increase you again. I want to wait until I see a week of like leveled out of the scale. So the scale is going to kind of do this because you're going to hopefully be building muscle, gaining strength, filling those muscle bellies up.

1:29:25So that's totally normal to gain a quick like five, six, seven pounds. but understand that's glycogen, water hopefully a little bit of muscle don't think in your head that's fat because a lot of people do they go oh my god I'm putting on too much no you're not you're going to gain a quick 5-7 pounds and then I want to see that kind of level off and then I'm going to do it again and so that might be 2 weeks it might be 3 weeks it might be 4 weeks I doubt it but it could take that long and then once you're leveled off again and you're not gaining any more weight now I'm bumping you another 500 calories exactly how I would do it But just so you know, a guy like you, if you were doing three days a week of strength training, plus jujitsu twice a week, your calories probably should sit around 3 ,000.

1:30:08Oh, yeah. At least. Oh, yeah. 2 ,000 is way low, dude. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And don't worry about testosterone. It is very reactive to your environment. So a man's testosterone can do this depending on your lifestyle. So don't worry about it. I'm pretty confident you'll see it bounce back up. No, you will. You'll bounce back up, which is exciting. I think within them, if we get you up to 3000 calories, I watch your testosterone come right back up. So the goal would be, let's get the testosterone. Let's get the calories up there with minimal body fat increase. And I bet you see testosterone come right up.

1:30:40Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, it sounds good. I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm excited to bring the calories back up and yeah, I'm going to get those testosterone numbers checked probably in a couple of months time just to kind of monitor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Give yourself a couple of months and then come. I'd love to hear back from you, Billy. I'd love to hear after you take the advice and do this. I want to hear where your numbers go. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really appreciate that, guys. Yeah, yeah. Check back with us. All right, man. All right, thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I got to say this too.

1:31:08People don't, they underestimate how much a sport like jiu-jitsu is taxing on the body. Oh, I know. It took me. Very taxing. I did even when I did it. And it took me a while to realize I can lift weights once a week. That's it. I can't do more than that. Otherwise, they end up frying my body. People have to understand, too, this is the classic mistake that I think almost everybody makes when they put on body fat and they decide they're going to make a change. Is they go from wherever. And I don't care. I didn't even ask him where his body fat. He said he wants to get to 12 to 15. I don't care if he was at 19 % body fat, 22 % body fat, or 30 % body fat.

1:31:47It's irrelevant to me. He's 196 pounds. He knows he wants to lose fat. Okay. The very first thing I'm doing is going after our protein and reverse dieting them. And the reason why I'm going to do that is I guarantee somebody who has fallen out of shape is not getting what their body needs. They're not getting enough. They guarantee they're probably over-consuming carbohydrates and saturated fat and sugars, and they're not hitting enough protein. And so right away, I'm going to get rid of some of those offenders, replace it with some good steak, chicken, all those types of meals, and try and build muscle.

1:32:21And then what will happen is he'll get somewhere between 3 ,000, 3 ,500, maybe more good calories, build some muscle. Maybe his weight stays the same. He's still 196 after a month of training with me. But now he's eating 3 ,500 calories, hitting his protein intake, strength going through the roof because he's building muscle. Then I can cut him down, and we don't see that happen to his testosterone. Our next caller is Marshall from Idaho. What's up, Marshall? How's it going? How you doing, Marshall? I just want to say thanks for this opportunity. it's really really helpful yeah you got how can we help you yeah so i'm 26 years old i have a very unique work schedule and it's constantly changing um which is kind of the challenge that i have originally i was a 270 pounds um so far i've lost 100 pounds over the course of three years originally i was tracking calories and uh started tracking proteins started listening to you guys about two years ago started learning the importance of fats and tracking really the majority of things in terms of fats and carbs.

1:33:18Eventually, after about a year and a half, I got down to 220 pounds, hired a personal trainer. And then in May of 2025, we decided to do a DEXA scan. I came back at 38 % body fat, 202 pounds, did another one in September, so roughly five, six months later, came back at 31 % body fat. So I lost a total of 20 pounds during that time, 19 pounds that was fat, one pound of that was a muscle. That's awesome. Uh, decided to do another, a pretty aggressive cut. I'm not going to lie. Uh, I was trying to lose a hundred pounds by the end of the year, which, uh, I did manage to hit. I did another Dexia scan and it was came back at 23 % body fat.

1:34:02I lost 15 pounds of fat during that time and actually gained three pounds of muscle. Wow. Excellent. Full body split instead of the push pull legs. Now the full body split I did, uh, create with my trainer. It is, uh, two gym focused days. And then because I have access to like a hotel gym, it is, uh, usually two full body days and then kind of accessory movements on the third day. And then, uh, but during that last aggressive cut, it was on the workout days, 1800 calories, 190 grams of protein, 120 grams of carbs and 60 grams of fat on the rest days. it was 1500 calories and the entire reduction came from carbs.

1:34:44So it was a very aggressive cut. Um, I did eventually again, reached that a hundred pound loss, managed to make it down to 170 pounds. And then eventually I decided I would part ways with my personal trainer. Um, and then was going to do a bulk, but I am a little bit afraid of that bulk. I'm not going to lie. Part of it's the adjusting work schedule. Part of it's the fact that I no longer have a trainer. And then the other thing is I don't want to gain an excess amount of fat. Yeah. You're going to be all right. You're fine. You're going to be fine. You're going to build some muscle, dude. Yeah, you won't.

1:35:15It won't happen. Like, I think the fear is like, oh my God, if I start to bulk or reverse diet, uh, then I'm just going to gain all this body fat or maybe I'll, it'll get off the rails and I'll just lose control. The whole thing is typically, it's typically the fear. So what I like to tell people, Marshall, who work with a trainer or a coach in a cut is it's just as valuable to work with someone on a reverse. So that same kind of structure, that accountability, that guidance, that's valuable in a cut that helps you from going back to eating the way you did or maybe not missing workouts. It's also valuable on the other end.

1:35:54Well, especially with someone like you because, Marshall, the biggest challenge here is going to be you get in your own way. That's right. you're yeah you're the the the fear of that weight that you carried for so long like that's that's still in there right and yeah and when you reverse diet we just had a call with somebody else that i was we were talking about reverse dieting another young man and uh he plateaued really hard and his calories were really low his testosterone he tanked his testosterone and uh i said you got to jump you got to jump 500 calories and you're gonna jump another i said listen you're gonna you're gonna to put seven pounds on the scale right away.

1:36:30I said, yeah, you're going to do that. I knew that would happen. Yeah. I'll try to kind of fight the urge on all of those things. Yeah. I have gotten the blood work done. Everything is good. Even in the aggressive cut. Oh, wow. Good. You're going to do good. Yeah. So the main thing I guess was the personal trainer, he abided by a lot of the things that you guys recommended, but not everything. There was definitely some junk volume, increased cardio, decreased calories. And he wanted me to even cut fats and I wasn't really willing to go below what I was already at at 60 grams. So there was definitely some challenges with the personal trainer, but I guess.

1:37:02How do you feel, Marshall, how do you feel with workouts on your own? Do you feel comfortable with that? Yeah, for the most part. I mean, occasionally I have to ask for a spotter, but nothing more than that. All right. So it's the nutrition guidance that'll help you the most. Okay. Okay. So we have coaches that work for us. If you, if you want a coach to help you on the other end of it, then that's what they'll focus on with you is the reverse diet part of it if you look here's the deal you you're in a perfect place to reverse diet and what's going to come from it is a lot of muscle what's interesting to me i'm going to tell you this looking at your numbers how little muscle you lost initially and then how you gain muscle even through this whole process of losing weight tells me you probably have really good muscle building genetics yeah okay i would have expected a lot of muscle loss yeah especially as you got down really low calories the fact that you were able to still maintain that muscle and or gain muscle and in effect that's so what'll probably happen on a good smart reverse diet is you're going to build a lot of muscle yeah which is going to be great that's going to be great because that's going to put you metabolically in a wonderful place and what we want eventually marshall is for you to be in a place where your maintenance is a lot of calories yeah then then you got all this flexibility you know if you're walking around your maintenance is at 1800 calories 2000 it's like oh man if i go off on a weekend or go on a vacation real careful yeah this is gonna mess me i can't really i gotta be real scared i gotta be controlled with everything but i think i think you probably build muscle really well so with a good smart reverse diet we pack on some muscle get you strong which you'll by the way fat loss gets way easier if you do this way easier he had he had a push pull legs and then he went to like a full body with an accessory what program will we switch him over to right now well if he works with one of our coaches i think they'll be able to give them a get a real good so i i think i have um i think it's anabolic but um i did kind of model my thing off of that but like i said i have i travel for work so i have access to a gym usually two days a week and then the third day is a hotel gym so it's kind of just 50 pound dumbbells yeah that's an ablock's perfect for that yeah yeah yeah you're good you're good with that yeah yeah no you're doing bro you're gonna do good the hardest part will be the mental part literally 100 yeah yeah that your testosterone's good you got all the way weight down there you got a good programming like you're it's literally just going to be the mental challenge of fear of going that way you're not going to do and the scale is going to scare you especially if you start gaining muscle and you're filling out with glycogen it's going to freak you out but yeah i have a feeling you're going to build muscle really quick and if you just know okay listen you if you if you increase those calories through good choices where this goes wrong and off the rails is where someone's okay i'm on a reverse diet and then they just start eating shit.

1:39:38If you eat good choices, you reverse diet and your strength training with a good program, you, the most of that weight is going to be good weight. It's going to be good weight. Like that you're going to be just fine. So again, that's a lot of the coaching sounds like that with someone like you is just reminding you like you're doing good, bro. Giving you targets. So realistically, if I was, so I just finished a week of 2300 calories. I planned on bumping into 2 ,500 calories. And again, all that go into carbs and fats. So I'm still hitting 190 grams of protein. Would that work if I just continue gradually increasing calories in that way?

1:40:14Yep. Yeah. You can even go more protein if you like. Yep. Okay. What's your target body weight? If you digest protein well and you like it, I mean. What's your target body weight? What do you want to work? So this morning I weighed in 176 pounds. I planned to bulk until March or April or until I hit 200 pounds, whichever happens first. Yeah. And then cut back down. No, you're on point. Yeah. But 200 grams of protein is great then. Yeah. You're on point. Okay. Yep. Yep. 100%. Yeah. You're doing good, dude. You're doing real good. I'd love to. And then in terms of, I guess, ensuring that it's a muscle gain and not fat, what's the best way to do that?

1:40:50Just Dexac scan every, you know, maybe 45 to 60 days. Yeah. Also strength. Strength. Yeah. I mean, strength is obvious. That's your weekly indicator you're heading down the right path, right? If you're getting stronger, feeling good, you're probably doing all the right things. But a check-in every 45 to 60 days with a DEXA scan, just like you've been doing, just to make sure. And again, don't freak out if you gain one or two pounds of fat. That's totally normal. If we're moving in the right direction, you're building more muscle than you are fat, and you're increasing calories, that's a win. That's what we're trying to do.

1:41:25We're trying to add more muscle than fat and increase calories. You're doing the right thing. Don't forget this, Marshall, because if you do an exoscan, it may say, oh, you gained eight pounds of muscle and you gained three pounds of fat. You're like, oh, man, I gained fat. You're actually, I don't know the numbers, but you're probably leaner now because it's a body fat percentage. So keep that in mind as well. Not to mention you are now a body that's eating 500 more calories than what you were every single day. which is like this, like my gait, like I care less as long as, what I don't want to see is you put 10 pounds on and seven of it's fat and three of it's muscle.

1:42:01That tells me we're bulking too fast. But if I'm putting on more muscle than you are body fat and I'm increasing calories, that's a win. That means we are building muscle at a faster rate than we are adding body fat and increasing calories. You're doing pretty damn good. So don't worry about a couple pounds of fat here if more of it is coming in muscle and you're in a calorie surplus. us that's what we just don't want to see a flip-flop to me tells me i moved to i increased too fast how too aggressive how do you feel at 2300 calories i mean i feel better it's definitely uh the energy is significantly higher with the increasing carbs yeah yeah we till you get to 28 i am afraid to go higher i'm not gonna lie no you're gonna be all right you're gonna be all right well let us know if you want one of our coaches to work with you through this process but otherwise i mean you're doing great dude that's what they would do what they would do with you through this process because it's it's it is kind of inevitable you're going to have those moments uh with those challenges slowing down the reverse changing the programming up a little bit i might i might if i was coaching you i might hey this week we're gonna do a little mini cut let's interrupt the bulk for one week depending on what's going on to give you a diet break if you're starting to feel oh god i feel like so there's a lot of things that this is what a coach would do to help you through the mental process but to be honest you're doing a really good job dude you are okay i was considering doing like a three-week bulk one week mini cut i was thinking about doing that but i wasn't sure that was the you could totally do that you could do that and but honestly that's more for the psychological reason why i would do that not because you need to do that it's just it's just like if i was coaching you and you're you're constantly giving me this feedback like oh my god out of my feel bloated i feel this and like i hear that a lot then i'll be like all right come on one more week we're gonna see these high calories and then next week i'm gonna cut your calories and then i cut your calories give you a diet break and then i know what will happen you'll get hungry again and then i'll be like all right let's go back and so So it's more psychological than it's like this perfect strategy to only put muscle on.

1:43:50It's like that. It's less of that. It's more that would be me hearing you out. You don't need to do that, but you can. Okay. And in terms of cardio, is there anything you recommend in just 10 ,000 steps a day? Just keep your steps up. You're fine. Yeah, keep your steps up. Be active, but don't go out of your – you're on a reverse diet, so I don't need you going out of your way to get over activity. Just be your active, normal self. Okay. Yep. All right. I appreciate it. You got it, man. Doing good, dude. I'd love to hear back from you. If you don't end up with one of our coaches, I would love to hear back from you anyways.

1:44:22Okay. Would I just email back at the same thing? We could have somebody reach out to you today. Yeah. All right. I appreciate it. All right, Marshall. You got it. Thank you. You got it. Man, I'm shocked. Dude, I am blown away that he was able to go that low of calories and see an increase in muscle. That tells me. And keep his testosterone levels up. That tells me that he's got genetics. He's got good genetics. Yeah. That's pretty rare. I've known people like this. They go real low calorie and don't lose any muscle. Yeah. I don't know a lot of people like that, but I've known people like that.

1:44:52What is going on? Yeah. It's wild. Yeah. My ex was like that. Yeah. You've talked about that. We used to have to dangerously diet her low calorie. And she wouldn't lose a single. And she wouldn't lose a single pound. Just hold. Also, it made it hard for her to lose body fat. Yeah. Her body just held on. Like, just held on. But you could put her at such low calorie and just keep every pound of muscle on her. I was so jealous. I drop calories. Muscle just comes off just as fast. It falls out of my pockets. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram, Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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